Summary

Dean’s your typical half-orphaned, monster-killing 22-year-old until a trenchcoated stranger crashes into his back windshield one September night, claiming he’s an angel that knows him from the future and that he’s on the run.

Frigging fantastic.

(Or, in which Castiel gets stuck in Dean’s timeline preseries and Dean kind of hates it—until he doesn’t.)

My Thoughts

Diva here, taking over FFW so that the Collectress can prepare for our CollectiveSmash Star Wars rewatch that starts on Friday. I’m deep in the DCBB 2015 rabbit hole (I’m already bookmarking for next year’s list), and I want you to join me, starting with this amazing fic.

First of all, the summary doesn’t do this story justice. The characterization is beyond perfect, with young Dean working through his daddy issues and a time travelling Castiel working through his Dean issues, trying together, as always, to save the world. This canon divergent fic hits all the right notes, and the author captures the inner life of Dean Winchester perfectly, without taking away from the other characters we see along the way. Paternal!Bobby Singer, A+ John Winchester parenting and Stanford!Sam, anyone? Plus, I can’t rave enough about Cas.

Be warned, there are some scenes that are so desperate and raw, they will bring tears to your eyes with a bit of joy and a bit of pain, all revealing the internal struggles of a Dean and Cas who believe they can never have (and don’t really deserve) what they want.

I read this story in pretty much one sitting, and yes, now I know how long it takes me to read almost 100k, okay, so sue me. When you finish this one, go read everything by mishcollin, you won’t regret it.